Why?

Before I say what I want to say, take a look at the painting above. I’ll tell you why, later. Ignore the crease in the middle - I made a concertina sketchbook. :D

So, why do we do it? What, you ask? Well, criticise ourselves. Harshly. Yeah we all do it and some of us, ahem, we do it rather well. Question is, why? Is it as simple as, ‘we want whatever we’re doing, to be the best we can do’, or is it more complicated than that? Whatever the reason, we all do it - artist or not. Our brain seems to be wired to pick out ‘what’s wrong’. I imagine it’s a survival thing. Look at what’s in front of you and pick out the thing that doesn’t fit, the thing that could be dangerous, the thing that could kill you. So we look, figure things out and if we still make a mistake, we punish ourselves. For most of us, in this era, thankfully, things are not that dire. Though our environment has changed, the behaviour remains. That same internal voice that tells us to look around, becomes the scolding voice when we don’t meet our (or others’) expectations.

This tendency translates to everything, not least of which is when making art. Artists of all stripes are critical of themselves. The drive to be the best, put our best foot forward, do our best work, is intrinsically human. It is what has put us on top of the food chain. It has extracted a bitter price, though. It has made us doubt ourselves, our worth. I’ve been ill for 2 weeks; before that, we were in Calgary for a wedding. I haven’t painted anything of significance in well over a month and insidious thoughts of whether I’ll ever paint anything good again, are starting to float into my brain. If someone came to me and actually articulated that thought, I’d be royally miffed! But we allow ourselves to do it, all the time. So what makes it acceptable to do so? Short answer is, nothing. Nothing makes it okay to be terrible to ourselves. We need to remember that words are powerful. The brain doesn’t know the difference between harsh words from ourselves or from others. It just hears and changes things accordingly. It changes our perception of ourselves and by extension, changes how we interact with the world. It trickles down into everything we do, everything we are.

When I paint, I find myself doing this a lot. I’ll paint a whole picture, and it’ll be good, BUT for that little flaw that becomes bigger and bigger in my head until it’s all I can see. Now my painting is nothing else but that flaw. Case in point, the painting above. I like it all, EXCEPT those trees at the bottom. Now the trees are all I can see. It’s the missing tile syndrome - focussing on what’s missing, instead of enjoying what’s present. Madness, isn’t it? So what do we do? Shall we just give up and let paintings be giant sloppy messes? Nope, can’t do that. So, then what? Maybe it’s not as complicated as we make it. Maybe we should just be thankful that we have an opportunity to paint, thankful that we have hands with which to paint, thankful we can afford to buy supplies. Maybe we need to just be grateful in the here and now and leave the rest up to the universe. Yes, we need to learn and practise our techniques, but I’m talking more about worrying about the end result. As Dali said, “Have no fear of perfection - you’ll never reach it”. So why run after it? Besides, flawed things are more attractive than perfect ones. The Japanese art of Kintsugi is the perfect example. If we’re graceful about our own shortcomings, maybe that grace will show up in what we create. Then perhaps we will have found what we were looking for - a lovely painting, despite the flaws. Besides, the best thing is, others look at our work with their own eyes, not our judgy ones! They may not even see the ‘flaw’. So let’s all just take a chill pill (I’ll be needing an extra large bottle, please and thank you) and enjoy the gifts we have, without analysing everything to the last molecule. It’s a painting, not life and death. :D